Review: This Is How I Got Arrested (after Smuggling Drugs across the border but never actually getting caught with any drugs)

📍 Playground 3, ZOO Playground

🗓️ 19th August 2026

🎟️ PR Invite

📸 This is How I Got Arrested...

I really wasn’t sure what to expect with this one and it was an even better experience than I imagined. Despite the title of the show being the longest of any show I’ve ever seen at Fringe, the show itself absolutely flew by! Sixty minutes of absolute chaos…in the best possible way.

Written, performed and produced by Azaelia Slade, this performance takes us on quite a journey - it’s raw, absolutely hilarious and by the end, really thought-provoking.

Firstly, Azaelia’s performance was packed with energy. The show runs at a consistently fast pace, never quite giving her a minute to slow down, but she handles this so well. Slade is so naturally funny, engaging and expressive that you cannot help but be pulled into her story. Her audience interactions added another layer to the performance, at one point the whole room working together to find a missing prop, which she handled extremely well, all while jogging on the spot for an extended period of time.

There’s a lot of audience participation within this - as Slade tells her story, some audience members are given cards to hold up (some with lines) playing the people she has met along her journey - their faces drawn on the cards. This is all handled in such a fun and creative way. Slade does such a good job of making the audience participation feel natural and comfortable, and her bubbly personality makes you want to be part of her story. Even at moments where it wasn’t expected, the audience were still getting involved and reacting, which is a testament to the environment that Slade created here.

Despite the show being quite fast-paced, it never seems rushed. We learn about her childhood, her influences in life and growing up in a working-class family. At intervals during the show, a phone behind her rings, pulling her out of her wonderfully chaotic storytelling. She handles the switch in moods so well, and beyond all the humour and crazy antics, it’s clear that deep down there are struggles that she is dealing with and her adventures and mishaps are a way of coping with these underlying issues.

Hilariously funny yet surprisingly tender and thought-provoking, This Is How I Got Arrested is a wonderfully chaotic 60 minutes you can spend at the theatre, and I highly recommend you check it out!

This Is How I Got Arrested... runs at  Playground 3, ZOO Playground until 30 August at 19:40.